Prized Amalgam
by Mertiya
Summary: Gisa, Geralf, and Ludevic are trapped in a church by a number of horrifying abominations; worse, Geralf finds himself pining after the other necroalchemist.


**Prized Amalgam**

The very walls of the church were shaking; at least, so Geralf thought. Surely, the very floorboards were vibrating. It definitely wasn't just that he was shivering. It was, perhaps, a little dank and chilly, but he wasn't afraid, of course.

Peering gingerly out of one of the broken stained glass windows, he determined that the twisted creatures that had been pursuing him, Gisa, and Ludevic definitely hadn't left. If anything, they appeared to be regrouping and moving toward the door. Geralf swallowed hard. Hiding in a church waiting for the things that he was relatively sure had been villagers earlier in the day to go away had been Plan A, and Plan A was decidedly not working. It was looking very much as if it was time to move to Plan B. Now he just needed to figure out a Plan B.

"Gisa," he called, stepping away from the window. "Can you raise some corpses from here?"

"Not from the churchyard," his sister responded, surprisingly managing to refrain from insulting him. "They wouldn't be able to hear me."

"We should check the catacombs," Ludevic suggested. "All of us would, I believe, benefit from the availability of a supply of fresh corpses."

"They won't be fresh if they're in the catacombs," Gisa objected, with more of her usual intolerable rudeness.

"Gisa," Geralf said sternly. "I can tolerate your insults to myself, but, please, at least refrain from insulting such a master of his craft."

Gisa rolled her eyes. "I'll insult whom I please, cranky-pants," she said blithely.

As Geralf pulled himself to his full height to deliver a storm of invective that would certainly—for once—put her in her place, Ludevic put a hand on his shoulder.

"I appreciate the thought, but perhaps you two could argue at a time when we are not beset by horrors beyond even the ken of my prodigious imagination," he said mildly.

Demonstrating considerable will power, Geralf forebore from saying anything else, though he was unable to restrain a soft growling noise. Gisa smirked at him, then gestured to the door. "After you, dear brother," she suggested. "I know you would want to be the one to lead us toward whatever unknown perils lurk in the catacombs."

Well, he couldn't very well argue with that without looking like a complete coward in front of Ludevic. Damn her. "Of course," he said loftily, snatching their rain-spattered oil lamp off of the table where it had been resting.

They had to pass the main doors of the church to reach the stairway leading downward, and Geralf tried exceedingly hard not to pay attention to the soft, wet noises that were coming from outside. There had been several villagers trying to reach the church with them, but none of them had run as fast. The screams had taken longer to end than he might have liked. Villagers might be expendable, but that was no reason to be _cruel_.

They were in luck. The catacombs contained a number of corpses, both fresh and not-so-fresh. Soon, Gisa was whistling up a storm, and Ludevic and Geralf were hurrying back and forth, setting up a makeshift laboratory just inside the catacomb doorway. Lamps were lighted, needles were threaded, and they began to work.

After about half an hour, when Gisa had amassed a relatively sizeable army, Ludevic and Geralf's creation was beginning to look close to being finished. "It could really use better arms, I think," Ludevic said slowly, glancing over at Geralf, who nodded.

"Yes, I believe right now it simply needs a better ability to engage in combat. It seems stable, and the enchantment of the multiple eyes gives it a good range of vision, but perhaps arms set all round the torso—preferably with weapons…" Geralf spoke half to himself, half to Ludevic.

"I'll venture out and see what I can find," Ludevic patted Geralf absently on the back, and Geralf had to bite back a sudden gasp at the shock of the contact. It still confused and amazed him at one level—that this genius, this marvelous mind, should find _him_ an affable companion. Of course, Geralf was no mere amateur in necroalchemy, but still—Ludevic was his idol, the dream of his youth, the—the—more than that. His friend, companion—he wanted to share everything in his life with the man.

"So how's the extra giant corpse coming?" Gisa leaned against the wall, surrounded by a gaggle of decomposing zombies. Geralf sniffed. There was no _art_ to Gisa's preferred method—though he had to admit it was certainly efficient. Doubtless, his and Ludevic's creation would be far more powerful, but it might not outstrip Gisa's capability to simply overwhelm their foes.

"It is coming well," Geralf replied cautiously. "Soon, I imagine it will be able to scatter the creatures outside."

"I took a look out," Gisa said casually. "How fast can you be done? There's more of them now. They'll probably be able to bash the door down any minute."

Geralf looked back at their attempt, which suddenly seemed very small and slapdash. "Er," he said in a small voice. "I suppose it depends how fast Ludevic returns. But I would expect at least ten minutes."

"I'll make sure to raise your corpse so you can keep fighting." Gisa smiled sweetly at him.  
"We're not going to die!" Geralf snapped, mostly as an attempt to reassure himself. "And I refuse to believe that even _you_ would be so coarse as to raise my corpse."

"Why not? I'm sure Ludevic would take bits off you and stitch them together."

"That is entirely different," Geralf retorted hotly, which was when the wall exploded.

It was a rather small eldritch abomination, as eldritch abominations went, but it was still a mass of writhing tentacles larger than Geralf's head. He skipped backwards, barely avoiding a tentacular blow to the face, and then tripped ignominiously over his own workstation. As he went over backwards, he heard Gisa give out a piercing whistle. He scrabbled away on his hands and knees, trying to find the copper rod to connect the lightning jar to his and Ludevic's nearly-finished skaab— _but it wasn't finished, not really, not finished enough, it wouldn't be able to defend them_ —but he couldn't find it.

Something soft and slimy touched the back of his neck, and he was—

— _wreathed in crackling flames. The mansion was coming apart around him, and he lay and stared at the fiery ceiling until the drifts of smoke coalesced into a writhing form, whose bulbous, mushroom-like head and rocky outcroppings could be an angel's halo and wings, if he just squinted a little closer. If he just looked a little bit harder._

 _He could hear someone calling his name from the space above him; beneath her halo, the angel's wide eyes seemed to expand, drawing him in, towards a place of peace and safety. Away from all your troubles, she seemed to be saying. Away from your need for perfection, your need for recognition, and it sounded so restful. It sounded so—_

—reeling back to consciousness, his cheek stinging viciously. He reached up, blindly clawing at whoever at had been hitting him. "Gisa, why?" he moaned, blinking his eyes slowly and trying to make his vision less fuzzy.

His sister growled angrily. "Oh, of course, don't bother thanking me for saving your wretched life," she snapped.

Geralf looked down at himself. Half a tentacle-beast was lying in his lap. Several zombies were thoughtfully chewing on its twitching extremities. He tried to scream, but all that really came out was a strangled gurgle. Looking up, he saw that several more zombies were scrambling around to repair the hole the eldritch thing had left in the side of the passage. They weren't very good at it; rain from outside was collecting in a pool on the worn stones.

Swallowing hard, Geralf put a hand to his head. "I do not want to die," he said softly. There were squishy things in his hair, and he shuddered as he picked them out, one by one.

"What was that?" Gisa asked, pausing as she attempted to direct the zombies to plug the whole better.

"I said I don't want to _die_ ," Geralf said plaintively. "I'm too young to die, I'm too brilliant to die, and I'm too damn inexperienced to die!"

Gisa blinked at him. "You're too what?"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE A VIRGIN!" They stared at each other, Geralf panting and half-ashamed of his outburst, Gisa with that horrible rictus-like grin beginning to twist her features. Oh, he should not have said that within earshot of her.

"Well," Gisa said, the grin widening, "I could help you with that—"

"What." This was actually worse than tentacle-beast in his hair.

"—by raising a corpse to bed you."

He realized he had stopped breathing, which was rather an unhelpful reaction, given the circumstances. "That is only marginally less horrifying than my initial impression," he responded severely.

"Well, how else are you going to find someone?" Gisa asked pragmatically. "I'll even try to find a fresh corpse, just for you, dear brother."

"No. Absolutely not. There is nothing on this green earth that could make me bed a corpse."

"Your only alternative is—"

"Do _not_ —"

"—going to bed with your darling idol Ludevic."

"That is—ridiculous, absurd, utterly—utterly—" Geralf stalled, swallowed, and tried not to actually think about that. Tried not to think of it as a possibility. Because now that it had been brought to his attention—he was often remarkably aware of Ludevic in a very _physical_ sort of way. Of course, he hung on every word that Ludevic spoke, because the man was an incomparable genius, but—but—Geralf was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that sometimes he hung on every word because he was watching Ludevic's lips. And now that Gisa had said something, he was wondering how his friend's lips would feel. He groaned and put his head in his hands.

Gisa started laughing. "Oh, Avacyn," she chuckled. "You are _actually_ interested in that old relic?"

"He's not a relic!" Geralf responded hotly. "And he's not old!"

"Just sickly?" Gisa mocked. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a corpse? It would probably have better stamina."

"He is a handsome man," Geralf gritted out.

"So you'll go tell him of your romantic regard right now, of course."

"Wh-what?"

"Well, I mean, we might all be about to die. And it would be such a pity if you let him die without confessing your affection, wouldn't it? Unless you're a scaredy-cat."

"I am _not_ a scaredy-cat!" How had the conversation gotten here? Geralf's cheeks felt tight and hot, and his stomach was twisted in a warm knot, terror warring with something he thought might be lust. Which was, on the one hand, ridiculous, and on the other hand almost as terrifying as the thought of dying. And then there was the problem of Gisa calling him a scaredy-cat. He couldn't possibly appear weak in front of her right now, especially when she had just had the abominable good luck of being able to save his life from whatever that thing had been. "I—I will go find Ludevic right now. You'll see. He thinks very highly of me, you know."

Gisa grinned that infuriating, horrible grin again. "Of course he does," she said loftily. "You're the child prodigy, after all."

Geralf did not feel that such a statement deserved a response, but he found himself growling under his breath nonetheless. It was somewhat difficult to get to his feet, as his legs were trembling terribly, but it was unsurprising that they were a little wobbly after having been half-crushed by a thing made of tentacles and ichor. _Heavy_ tentacles.

He found Ludevic just down the first passageway to the left, bending over a half-decomposed corpse with a sigh. "There you are, dear boy," Ludevic said, and Geralf winced at the expression, which wasn't one his friend normally used.

"Ludevic—my friend—there is something that I would like to discuss with you," he managed to say haltingly. The words felt as if they were floating out of someone else's mouth, light and impossible to keep in, yet also tugged out of his chest with some effort.

"Perhaps not this instant, unless it is related to our creation?" Ludevic suggested. "There are, after all, better times than imminent demise."

"What better time for a heart to heart?" Geralf tried, although he could feel his mouth going dry. This was already not going as well as he might have hoped.

"Geralf…"

He didn't know how to say what he wanted to say, and his heart was fluttering somewhere in the vicinity of his uvula. So instead, before he could think about it too hard, he stepped forward, gently tipped Ludevic's chin down and kissed him on the mouth. His friend's mouth was warm and soft beneath his own, and one of Geralf's hands landed on Ludevic's waist. It felt right, like coming home to his lab after a long night's work digging up parts in a graveyard. Ludevic groaned into his mouth, and one hand tightened on his shoulder, and Geralf deepened the kiss, nipping at Ludevic's lower lip with a soft sigh.

And then Ludevic went suddenly, painfully still and stiff in his arms until he pulled back, and Geralf looked at him pleadingly. "I'm not a child," he said, his voice wavering, trying to figure out what he had done that was so wrong.

"Geralf—" Ludevic shut his eyes and exhaled shakily. "I—care about you a great deal. More than perhaps I should. But I do not want to get caught up in a spat between you and your sister. Both of us would only get hurt."

Oh, Avacyn. He had overheard the entire conversation between Geralf and Gisa. "No, n-n-no," Geralf tried. "That is not why, that is _absolutely_ —Gisa has nothing to do with this, well, perhaps the timing, but—"

"Dear boy, I understand your desire to experiment, but I am not the man with which to do so. And don't worry, I'll see to it that you don't die." Ludevic's smile was so heartbreakingly sincere that Geralf wanted to cry. "You will have many better options once we succeed in our most recent endeavor."

 _But I don't want better options_ , Geralf thought miserably, but could not make himself say. Instead, he forced a crooked smile onto his face. "Of course, I did not mean to distract you from—I just thought—it was foolish of me. Forgive me if I caused offense."

"Of course." Ludevic's hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment, just long enough for Geralf's hopes to rise, before they were dashed again when he turned away. "Anytime, dear one," he murmured, so quietly that Geralf thought he hadn't been intended to hear. _Dear one_ , not _dear boy_. He felt his heart give a huge thump again, and he hid his face in his hand for a moment. "Perhaps we'd better talk about how best to provide our skaab with power," he managed after a moment.

The skaab was nearly done, not a moment too soon. Gisa's zombies had managed to keep the assault on the front of the church from actually rampaging in and murdering all three of them, but they were close to depleted, and Gisa herself was sweating and angry, never a good sign. It was at this point, of course, that Geralf realized they were in some trouble.

He had been working on the skaab's control system—they had unfortunately had rather a dearth of intact heads to work with, and what they had was about half a skull stitched together from several different ones. In addition to missing the back of a cranial cavity, the only power source he had with him that would fit without falling out was not a long-term mechanism. "Oh, damn," Geralf said. Ludevic leaned over and looked, immediately seeing what the problem was.

"We could hook it up to one of the larger lightning jars," he said, frowning, "but there would be nowhere to put it. I can go back to the catacombs and search—"

There was a loud, hollow crack from the front.

"Hurry up!" Gisa screamed. "They'll be through any minute!"

"Give it to me," Geralf said.

"What?"

"Give me the lightning jar. We don't have any time." This was not the time to think about what would almost certainly happen to him. Ludevic looked confused as he handed the jar to Geralf.

"There's nowhere we can put it—"

Geralf took the two jars, the small and the large, seated the small one in the cranial cavity, and, as the zombie began to movie, connected the two with shaking fingers, and slung his legs over the creature's shoulders. "Come on, get up, let's go," he said as the zombie rose, and even over its wakening groan, he heard Ludevic cry his name. No time to think about that, and definitely no time to think about what he was doing. Instead, he held the jar as steady as he could to avoid interrupting the flow of electricity into the mechanism and tried not to pay attention to the fact that they were lumbering toward the door to the church.

They crashed through, startling the nearest creature, which still wore the tattered remnants of a cathar's tunic above its now-undulating extremities. It let out a hollow noise from somewhere within an orifice that had probably been a mouth but was now ringed with several dozen rheumy eyes, " _'mrakul_ ," the noise sounded like.

Geralf's skaab raised on thick, meaty fist, and pounded it to paste against the ground. Geralf himself found that he was quite pleased to hear the disgusting squelch of pulverizing flesh. Then another one of the things attacked, and another, and another, all of them moaning about _memerakul_ or something. His and Ludevic's skaab behaved wonderfully, as he would of course have expected of something they had constructed together. It might have taken longer than Gisa's risen forces, but it was far hardier and more intelligent, displaying both a rudimentary sense of tactics and a willingness to listen to Geralf's occasionally, slightly desperate shouted instructions.

Things were actually beginning to swing in their favor, and Geralf was feeling giddy with the rush of heroism, when the last of Gisa's zombies fell, the door to the church crashed inwards, and simultaneously something on the ground that he had taken to be a haystack shook off the appearance of quiescence and humped into a mushroom-like shape that was at least twice as large as the skaab. Geralf felt his mouth falling open.

"Geralf!" Ludevic was calling his name, and he risked one glance backwards. Ludevic, Gisa just behind him, was gesturing to him frantically to get back, but, Geralf thought, looking at the rising behemoth, there was no way all three of them would be able to escape from that with the door to the church no longer intact. And worse than that, he could feel the strange buzzing voice rising in his brain, the one he had heard when the monstrosity crashed through the wall and grabbed him.

He couldn't move. The skaab and he could not let this thing through. No point in all three of them dying, after all. He needed to get back at Gisa for saving his life earlier, and Ludevic—Geralf's chin firmed. No matter what, no matter whether his affections were returned in some small measure or not at all, he would simply not allow the love of his life to be harmed.

Standing up on the skaab's shoulders, Geralf made himself as large as possible and shouted, "I am the great necroalchemist Geralf! I have looked into the face of death and _laughed_!" He looked down at his hands, down at the sparking, crackling wire that ran from the lightning jars directly into the brain of the zombie. "Though," he had to admit to the skaab, if to no one else, "I have never looked into the face of my own death. And I seem to be having a hard time managing a chuckle." Still, there was nothing else for it, and he might as well try this absurd idea, preferably before he went quite insane and started babbling about memerakuls like the poor corrupted Cathars. Taking one last deep breath, stubbornly not listening to Ludevic's protesting shouts, he raised his hand and then grabbed the bare, sparking wire with his naked hand.

An invisible force grabbed at his arm, vaguely painful, but mostly simply undeniably powerful, and then he was in. They were bound, inextricably and exquisitely, by a thin cord of bright power, and they did not understand the strange pull of the creature in front of them anymore. It was only another thing to pummel—but now they could move more quickly, and now it was so much easier to dodge to the side when it lashed out with its appendages. Quite simple to snatch at those appendages and twist. They did not need to win this quickly, for they would not tire. They just needed to wear it down, keep it occupied until the other two could escape. And then they could go to sleep, if they needed to.

It was a long fight, because they needed to wear the creature down, but they were able to stay out of its reach for most of it, making it nothing more than a battle of attrition. After some time, the creature was trembling and oozing ichor from a number of stumps where its limbs had been. Which was—naturally, a part of them thought cynically—when they tripped over a particularly unfortunately-placed limb. Having five legs, it was only enough to throw them off-balance, but the last few remaining tentacles caught at three of their legs and pulled them the rest of the way to the ground.

The horror loomed over them. It was breathing heavily, making a squishing, wheezing noise through various orifices, some of which they had torn in it earlier. It was definitely almost dead, but it was also definitely pinning them at this point. Part of them was screaming, which seemed a little silly, but they were— _going to have his head torn off by a fucking tentacle beast a little screaming is warranted_ —not in a good situation. They tried to roll away, but could not. The mushroom-shaped creature opened its main mouth, which was studded all the way around with eyes and needle-sharp teeth, and bent over them.

And then it screamed as a silver spear went directly through its mouth and up through the back of its head. Ludevic, spattered with ichor and gravedirt, twisted the battered weapon viciously as the monster's scream died out in a wet, fading gurgle. It collapsed slowly, the stumps of its limbs still twitching in its death throes. The stitcher stood over it for a moment, panting, and then turned to them, falling to his knees in the mud alongside.

"Geralf—Geralf, can you hear me?" Then he leaned forward, hand wrapped in cloth, and began to pull away at the line of force that connected them.

"Wait—" they murmured, but it was too late, and Geralf was falling back into his body, his hand burning with pain, and then there was darkness and pain rising up to catch him, and he fell backwards into it.

* * *

He clawed his way out of nightmares with a shout, a sharp twinge of pain in his hand drawing him further into consciousness. "Thank Ava—thank somebody," murmured a voice by his ear. "Geralf, you're all right, aren't you?" Ludevic's voice was shaken and almost pleading.

"Think so." His voice came out slurred, and he had to make two separate attempts to open his eyes. When he did, he found himself staring at a thatched roof. It had holes in a few places, through which he could see patches of blue sky. "M'head hurts."

"What you did was incredibly brave and incredibly foolish," Ludevic told him, and Geralf blinked at him stupidly.

"Yeah," he agreed after a minute, his tongue still heavy in his mouth. "Didn't want you to die."

"Oh, my dear—" Ludevic stumbled over the words, "—f-friend, I thought we had lost you."

Though his limbs were still heavy, Geralf lifted a hand to touch Ludevic's face gently. "'M not that easy to dispose of." His head was beginning to clear already, and he started to sit up with a groan. "Ungh, where are we?"

"Just—stay still for a moment." Ludevic pressed him back down into the bed gently. "We found an abandoned cottage near the church. It's reasonably defensible, and most of the creatures seem to be giving us a wide berth at this point, so we seem to be safe for now. Your sister raised some more zombies to keep watch for us, once she had had a rest."

"Ha," Geralf mumbled. "That'll show her. I saved her life right back."

"You saved both of us."

"'Course I saved you, Lud—Lude—Ludy." His lips were still just numb enough that he couldn't quite pronounce the full name. "You are my—my everything. Even if you do not feel the way about me that I feel about you, I will never—that is, I—" His thoughts kept breaking off in ways that made it difficult to form coherent words.

Ludevic breathed in, a soft, sudden hiccupping sound. "So you were not simply looking for anyone to pass the time with?" he asked softly. "I believe your conversation with your sister may have misled me."

"No—no, oh no." Geralf could hear the sob in his voice as he levered himself up off the bed and kissed Ludevic with more force than he would have thought he could muster. His friend sighed into the kiss, and this time, Ludevic did not freeze or pull away. "I am so sorry you overheard that. I should not—I should not have come to you after it, only I—I—" He was speaking feverishly against Ludevic's mouth. "It was foolish, I was afraid, I…"

"Shhh, shhh, love." Ludevic rested his forehead against Geralf's and ran a hand through the other man's hair. "I understand now. When I saw what you had done, I cursed myself a hundred times."

"What I had…done?" Geralf repeated stupidly. Gently, Ludevic took hold of his painful arm and turned it over on the cover, tracing his finger in the air just above it, over the line of inflamed red flesh, a lightning-strike pattern down the wrist that feathered out across his palm and onto each finger.

"I was afraid I had lost you forever, through my own willful blindness. I should never have allowed you to—"

"I'm fine," murmured Geralf. "And you were instrumental in ensuring that I would be. I would never have imagined you attacking something with such violence."

"Well," Ludevic brought Geralf's uninjured hand to his cheek, then turned his face and kissed it on the center of the palm, "I could not watch it kill you."

A spike of heat shot through Geralf at the intimate touch, and a soft sound dropped from his lips. Ludevic sighed into his palm, drawing his lips down Geralf's wrist, and the younger man whimpered, his hips rocking upward almost without conscious thought. "Avacyn, Ludevic," he groaned. "Please. I didn't die, and now I have all of those other options you were foolishly talking about, and I still only want _you_."

"That—that sounds—" A red flush appeared high on Ludevic's cheekbones. He choked off whatever he had been going to say and simply nodded, then dipped his head and drew his lips down Geralf's throat, trailing warmth and tingling sensation. Geralf moaned, letting his head fall back, and reached up to grasp the other man's back, tugging him down until their hips were touching. The sensation that spiked through him at the touch of Ludevic's hips and erection against his own drew a sudden, sharp cry from Geralf, and he arced his back and ground against Ludevic, who was panting in his ear, murmuring trembling words of endearment.

"Oh, Avacyn, I need—I need— _please_ ," whined Geralf, who was definitely not above begging as long as he was relatively certain his sister was not within earshot.

The ghost of a grin hovered on Ludevic's face. "I am afraid you'll have to be more specific, my dear," he drawled.

"You are _cruel_ ," Geralf objected. "You know that I have little ex—experience in these matters." His voice hitched as Ludevic slid a hand over the front of his trousers. "Although if you wanted to keep doing th—that, I would not entirely—hnnn—object."

"I am not exactly a renowned lover," Ludevic said dryly, "though I will admit to at least having had more trysts than you have. Still…" he paused meditatively, causing Geralf to whimper as the sensation died away. Before he could start to buck upwards into the stitcher's hand, Ludevic withdrew it entirely and started to rise from the bed.

"Where are you going?" Geralf objected, panting and desperate. "Don't go!" he added, a shaky and desperate afterthought.

"Relax, dear one," Ludevic said. "You enjoy experimentation, do you not? I would like to try something, and you can tell me whether or not it's enjoyable."

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Geralf rolled back against the pillows, noting, to his surprise, that they were really quite comfortable. "Very well, as long as you return _swiftly_."

Thankfully, it was only a few moments before he returned, carrying several small containers Geralf recognized as the type that were used to store alchemical reagents of numerous sorts. "Perhaps we'd better remove our clothing, hm?" Ludevic suggested, with a sudden bright smile.

Looking down at himself, Geralf realized he was, in fact, still wearing the same high-necked white shirt and loose dark leggings he had started the day in, and they were liberally encrusted with a number of substances he thought he would prefer not to name. It was the work of a moment for him to disrobe and drop the stained garments to the floor by the side of the cot. Ludevic was doing the same, albeit a bit more slowly.

"Here." Ludevic eased Geralf back onto the bed, and the heat of skin-to-skin contact made Geralf bite his lip against another moan that was threatening to spill out. "First, a moment. I should have seen to your arm before we began anything."

Geralf hissed in disappointed impatience, a noise that turned into a yelp when Ludevic took his arm and turned it over, applying an ointment from one of the containers to the inflamed burn across the inside of his wrist. "This is not arousing in the least," he said sternly, though he did not twist away.

"I'd prefer to minimize the risk of injury or infection, if it's all the same to you." Ludevic rubbed the ointment across the length of the burn, then produced a roll of bandages from beside the bed and bound Geralf's arm with it. "There, now at least you will not get dirt ground into it."

"You are a competent nurse," Geralf smiled. "I only wish I could have had your aid when I was trying to stitch up my own ribs years ago."

Ludevic paused in opening the second container to look up at Geralf. "You stitched up your own ribs?"

"They were broken, and Gisa was hardly a fit nursemaid. They still ache sometimes when it rains, but I seem to have done a fine job."

"You foolhardy—" Ludevic drew in a breath and rested three fingers on Geralf's chest. "I cannot understand how you are still alive."

"A great deal of skill," Geralf grinned, and Ludevic cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Perhaps a little luck," he conceded.

Almost angrily, Ludevic cupped Geralf's chin with his hand, and a moment later, Geralf felt the sudden press of Ludevic's lips against his, more forceful now than they had been previously. "Lie back," Ludevic instructed, voice gentle, if the hands that pushed Geralf to obey him were a little more eager. Slowly, he bent over Geralf's legs, and then Geralf felt the brush of lips up the inside of his thigh.

He moaned, sharp and rough, letting his head fall back against the pillow behind him. A quick brush of sensation along his erection—Geralf nearly climaxed then and there—and he blinked stupidly to see Ludevic smiling lazily up at him, clearly having just licked him along his shaft. "Now relax, dear one," Ludevic murmured, and Geralf felt a hand cup his buttocks and then a finger, very gently, slide inside him.

He did tense at first, against the sudden, unusual intrustion, but Ludevic paused, waiting, and Geralf shut his eyes and forced himself to relax. Not, perhaps, exactly what he had expected, but he trusted Ludevic, and surely—the finger shifted, and something hot and perfect bloomed between his legs. Geralf moaned and bucked upward in a manner he suspected was rather wanton, and a brief moment of concentration showed him that Ludevic was watching him with a greedy expression on his face. "Oh, _Avacyn_ ," Geralf groaned. "L-Lude—" Again, his powers of speech failed him, but for very different reasons this time. His hips were twitching upward in tandem with the motion of Ludevic's hand. "A—aren't you going to touch m-my—"

"I think this might finish prematurely if I did." Ludevic smiled wickedly, and Geralf groaned again, shutting his eyes and whimpering at the wash of sensations. A second finger joined the first, leaving Geralf keening and vaguely astonished that they both fit. "So," Ludevic breathed, bending down once more to kiss Geralf's mouth, then his throat, then murmur in his ear, "my hypothesis that you would enjoy this—it is validated?"

"Ye-ees." The word came out elongated with pleasure. "Oh—Lude—vic— _yes_ —" Geralf managed to push himself up on one elbow, and drag Ludevic back into another fierce kiss, finding it only fair to draw a panting groan out of the other man, though he wasn't sure he himself had stopped moaning for more than a few seconds at a time for the past five minutes. Nipping at Ludevic's bottom lip, Geralf squirmed upwards and dug trembling fingers into the other man's shoulder.

"Should I—" Ludevic hesitated, fingers going slack, which Geralf felt was really quite unfair.

"Don't stop," he begged, jerking his hips up and down, trying to recapture the feeling that was already evaporating. "Avacyn, don't stop, don't _stop_." Surely, he was not normally this impatient? But he had waited so long for this without even realizing what he was waiting for.

"Should I continue with my fingers, or—or—" Ludevic flushed, looking down at himself, and Geralf abruptly realized what he intended.

"Thus far your experiment has been a success," he replied. "I have no qualms about continuing it, as long as you _please_ start touching me again immediately."

Ludevic gave a long, shuddering intake of breath. "Of course," he murmured, sliding his hands slowly down Geralf's sides. "Then tip your hips up, if you would."

Geralf obeyed him eagerly, following the pull of his hands and biting his lip to keep from crying out. His legs were trembling so hard he could barely hold them still, but it was not from fear or any negative emotion. "Please," he whined again. "Please, Lude—vic—please—"

It wasn't a finger that brushed against him this time, and for a moment, he felt a heartbeat of concern, but the groan Ludevic gave as he pushed into him—slowly, so slowly—reassured him somehow, oddly enough. Ludevic curled forward, palms pressed against the back of Geralf's thighs, then waited for a moment, his breathing ragged, before slowly starting to thrust.

Whimpering, Geralf held still for a moment, and then Ludevic brushed the same exquisite spot inside him, and he was moaning and bucking his hips back against the other man. He didn't have very good leverage, hips off the bed, hands clutching desperately at the sheets, head sliding back into the pillows with every motion of Ludevic's, but instead of making him feel helpless, it left him feeling—light. Floating, almost dizzy, on a sea of pleasure, he felt rather as he did some nights when he and Ludevic were theorizing over a bottle of strong liquor. The same hazy, cloudy, half-formed ideas and the feeling of yearning for something he could not touch. Although perhaps not quite so literally those nights as now. He reached for his aching erection, but he simply could not get to it without losing his balance entirely.

"I can't," he babbled in desperation. "Please, I _can't_ , touch me, Lud—vic—please, please touch me, I can't—"

Ludevic made a noise like half a sob, but he finally slid one of his hands across Geralf's hip and seated it firmly around Geralf's erection. Geralf's abdomen seized up, hot sensation spiking up through everything, and his world whited out.

Things shivered back into focus a moment or two later. Ludevic was still moving inside him, but he had fallen forward, one hand on the pillow by Geralf's head, the other hovering over Geralf's shoulder. "Oh, my dear—" he gasped. "You feel—"

Geralf strained for breath, shuddering at the overabundance of stimulation. Little sparking jolts of pleasure continued up his spine at each thrust, and even Ludevic's hot breath on his mouth captivated his attention. "That was extraordinary," he managed, his voice breathy and desperate still. The muscles running of his abdomen were already beginning to feel the strain of the unusual motions, but he did his best to continue moving in tandem with Ludevic, who curled against him and mouthed down the side of his throat.

By the time Ludevic gave a short, gasping cry and climaxed, they were so tangled together that Geralf wasn't certain he could tell where his own limbs ended and Ludevic's began, a strange echo of the thin line of electricity that had bound him to the skaab earlier.

Lying and breathing together in the warm wake of what had just transpired was almost as pleasantly sensual as the act itself had been. "I think—" Ludevic hesitated, then kissed Geralf's forehead tenderly, brushing his hair back from his brow. "I care for you very deeply. Please endeavor in future to take more care of yourself." He fingered gently at the hem of the cloth he had bandaged Geralf's arm with.

"I am generally quite careful of myself," Geralf protested. "I believe you must agree that the circumstances in this case were rather extenuating."

"And were they extenuating last week when you removed a lightning jar from the rooftop during a thunderstorm?" Ludevic prodded.

"That is a tactic that you are well aware that I learned from you, and it improves the efficiency of the jars by at least twenty percent."

"I have a great deal more practical experience—"

"—which you gained by doing precisely what I am doing now—"

"—nevertheless, it is still the case that—"

"Have you two _quite_ finished?" Gisa flung the door open and then promptly hid her face. "Oh, for—flesh quilter, put on some pants, I do not need to see that."

"Then you may leave," Geralf said frostily. "There is no need for you to _rudely_ intrude on us like this."

"Honestly, I could have raised a corpse for you. Even that would have demonstrated better taste."

"Do not speak of Ludevic in such terms!"

Gisa smiled sweetly. "Dear brother, I was speaking _to_ Ludevic."

Swelling up in indignation, Geralf made ready to deliver a torrent of invective, but he subsided when Ludevic put a hand on his shoulder. "She did help ensure that you were not badly injured," he said quietly.

"Only because his corpse would have made a terrible addition to my collection."

"I saved her life, in any case," Geralf sulked. "She has no cause to lord it over me."

"Oh, I always have cause to lord it over you. I can't believe you bedded Ludevic the second you woke up, you greedy thing."

"Greedy? Greedy? _You_ would take my corpse and raise it for your collection if I died!"  
"I wouldn't want to, it would be awful."

"You still would, though."

"Both of you, please!" Ludevic threw his hands into the air. "Gisa, please give us some time to dress, and we will be happy to attend you with whatever you desire."

"No, we will not," Geralf said hurriedly.

"Either way," Ludevic interjected, before Gisa could respond, "I think we'd all do better for a good meal, don't you?"

Gisa sighed theatrically, and Geralf buried his face in Ludevic's chest, but finally muttered, "I suppose I am hungry, at that."

"I'll get my children to cook," Gisa said.

"Oh no you will not," Geralf told her, and Ludevic sighed and laid back, laughing. Geralf looked back at him and found himself laughing as well, though he wasn't sure what he was laughing at. Still, despite Gisa's presence, he felt remarkably cheerful.


End file.
